"The most important goal in my life is to have some significant impact in preserving and expanding the realm of personal freedom in the life of this country.” Richard D. Obenshain

The Easter Egg

VC Note: As some of you know, over the past two weeks I have been revising and adding to my second novel, a story of religious intrigue. Yesterday, it just passed the 20,000 word mark! From time to time, I have posted updates of my progress on Facebook and have gotten several requests for samples of my work. Unfortunately, this novel is not publicly available at this point. However, to give you a small taste of my style in writing fiction, here is an extremely brief tale I wrote back on Easter of 2013. I hope you enjoy!

The Easter Egg

By Joshua Huffman

3/31/13

There once were two friends, a young boy and a young girl. Over the last several months they had become the best of friends, the type who had so much in common and shared everything with each other, from what kinds of foods were their favorites, to their hopes for the future, to their deepest, darkest secrets; the ones that they hid from everyone else.

That Easter these two got together, along with a bunch of other kids, to take part in an egg hunt that the villagers had prepared. Working as a team, they found the hidden eggs, many more than most of the others, but the quantity of eggs they gathered mattered far less to either of them than the moments they shared enjoying each other’s company.

Toward the end of the hunt, the girl found a particularly unusual egg. She called her friend over and showed him this amazing treasure that she had discovered. The boy marveled over the egg for quite a long while; it was the most beautiful object he had ever seen, a dazzling kaleidoscope of the deepest blues and most vibrant greens.

Seeing how much he stood in awe of her new possession, she gladly offered it to her friend. He refused, sensing its value and feeling unworthy of it, saying that she was the one who had found it and, even if she hadn’t discovered its location, she still deserved it more than he. However, she insisted that it would mean far more to her if she knew that he had it, rather than if she kept it.

Gratefully the boy accepted this wonderful present from his friend and felt a peculiar flutter in his heart as the girl carefully transferred the egg from her hands to his and their eyes met.

The hunt now over, each participant returned home. Walking back through the forest, the boy was brimming with indescribable joy. He bounded happily through the woods, skipping along the journey, and whistling a happy tune. Not only did he have the great fortune to spend considerable time with a friend whose company he enjoyed more than anyone else’s, but he now carried an important package: a gift that instantly became his greatest possession, not because of some supposed immense financial worth, but made priceless because of the love and sacrifice of the friend who freely gave it to him.

Thinking only of the egg, and therefore not watching where he was going, the boy accidentally strayed a little from the dirt path. His foot struck a small rock and although it only caused him the slightest of pain, his hands clenched around his egg so that he wouldn’t drop it. Unfortunately, in the attempt to save his precious package from falling to the earth, he gripped it a little too tightly. He heard a loud cracking sound and felt something wet in the palms of his hands.

Awash in a feeling of dread, the boy slowly opened his hands to survey the egg. Much to his horror, he saw that the shell now had a long crack down the middle, a small piece had broken free, and yolk leaked through his fingers and was forming a small pool on the forest floor below.

Not knowing what else to do, the boy tried to force the shell fragment back into its proper place, but his plan only made the hole larger and he grew frustrated and overwhelmed with despair. Overcome with grief, with no more ideas on how he could fix this problem, he plopped himself down on the ground and cried. He cried for the loss of the egg, of course, because he thought he would never see something so beautiful again, but he cried, too, for the girl, the friend who gave it to him, and for everything it represented.

And so he sat, deep among the trees and moss, where no one else could hear him, where no one else could help him, and wept for this fragile egg; he wept until he could weep no more.